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Interesting article, but the relative cost of nuclear vs solar/wind/storage is why utility managers around the world are not that interesting in expanding their

Interesting article, but the relative cost of nuclear vs solar/wind/storage is why utility managers around the world are not that interesting in expanding their nuclear footprint. Often you'll see people argue that excessive regulation is what is driving costs up, but without a very high level of maintenance, nuclear power systems will inevitably have an unacceptable rate of failure. These safety margins need to be higher than those for units like oil refineries, coal-fired power plants etc., as the consequences of failure are so long-lasting (fires at oil refineries are relatively common, for example, but they don't result in 100-year no-go radioactive exclusion zones). Therefore, to make nuclear accidents highly unlikely, maintenance costs amd engineering standards will inevitably be much greater than in any other power supply system. This means nuclear will always cost significantly more than any other system - and this also applies to storage of too-hot-to-handle 'spent' nuclear fuel, as well as to the costs of eventual decommission. In addition, the nuclear fuel supply chain (high grade uranium ore -> fuel rods) is fairly complex, and subject to geopolitical and economic price spikes. All in all why would a utility manager these days looking at all the options for non-fossil-fuel power go with nuclear?

acidburnNSA 4y ago
On cost, the simple answer is that if fossil and biofuel had to pay for the air pollution health effects they cause (4.2 M deaths/year [1]) and the climate change damage they cause, then every utility would switch to nuclear for baseload immediately. The markets are incorrect in not capturing these costs. Nuclear is dramatically cheaper than fossil and biofuel on this basis alone in a real market. And of course the advantage of nuclear over wind and solar is that nuclear has a 92% capacity factor with fairly regular well-planned outages. The wind and solar costs you've seen, while stellar, do not include the costs of the backup generators and batteries, additional transmission to remote site, overcapacity required to charge the batteries at scale, etc etc. Nuclear is certainly on par with them in a fully decarbonized system. In any case, building nuclear alongside wind and solar makes the whole system cheaper [2]. Regarding 100 year no-go zones, the hottest areas I see around Fukushima today measure about 30 mSv/yr, which is about 2x higher than Denver's natural radiation. Japan is lifting even more evacuation orders as we speak [3]. If they gave people the proper information about the health risks (e.g. that you need more than 100 mSv in a year before the smallest measurable cancer increase can be seen) then people would have all moved back 10 years ago. [1] https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution [2] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 [3] https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/19741 https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/19741
- mcronce 4y ago
  > the costs of the backup generators and batteries Just to put an extra-fine point on this...the backup generators are typically fossil fuel fired, so the unpaid externalities apply to those as well.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  I think we want to compare nuclear and solar/wind/storage, where the base goal is to have a steady power generation rate over time (adjustable to demand within certain limits). This tends to produce a closer cost outcome for nuclear and s/w/s as storage costs (batteries, inertial storage, pumped hydro, etc.) are probably going to at least double or triple the installed costs of the s/w/s power system. For example, if you want to provide relatively steady 1GW of power 24-7, 12 m/yr, this can be done with a nuclear plant running at its optimal rate (*optimal for fuel rod lifetime and steady burn rate). With a solar/wind system, you'd likely need enough PV panels to produce say 2GW at noon, with 1GW going to grid demand and another GW going to storage, to meet demand at midnight etc. Balancing seasonal demand in subpolar regions would require a lot more power and storage as well, so nuclear may have an advantage there. Clearly both systems are possible, but both have supply chain issues (uranium ore and fuel elements and reactor construction, vs. battery components and PV panels and wind turbines and storage infrastructure). However, I'd guess long-term maintenance costs are going to be much lower with solar/wind/storage systems (with much lower fueling/waste storage issues and liabilities, which would really just be battery maintenance and replacement costs).
- irq-1 4y ago
  What am I misunderstanding/miscalculating? The US uses ~4000 billion kilowatt-hours [1] and these $1 Billion reactors produce 8GW. 8GW is 8 million kilowatt-hours. 4,000,000 MKWh / 8 MKWh = 500,000 reactors. To provide 20% of electricity we need 100,000 of these reactors at a cost of $100 Trillion? A quick google says: > One hundred trillion dollars. That’s the total net worth of all Americans in 2017*. [1] In 2021, net generation of electricity from utility-scale generators in the United States was about 4,116 billion kilowatthours (kWh) (or about 4.12 trillion kWh). https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...

acidburnNSA 4y ago

On cost, the simple answer is that if fossil and biofuel had to pay for the air pollution health effects they cause (4.2 M deaths/year [1]) and the climate change damage they cause, then every utility would switch to nuclear for baseload immediately. The markets are incorrect in not capturing these costs. Nuclear is dramatically cheaper than fossil and biofuel on this basis alone in a real market. And of course the advantage of nuclear over wind and solar is that nuclear has a 92% capacity factor with fairly regular well-planned outages. The wind and solar costs you've seen, while stellar, do not include the costs of the backup generators and batteries, additional transmission to remote site, overcapacity required to charge the batteries at scale, etc etc. Nuclear is certainly on par with them in a fully decarbonized system. In any case, building nuclear alongside wind and solar makes the whole system cheaper [2]. Regarding 100 year no-go zones, the hottest areas I see around Fukushima today measure about 30 mSv/yr, which is about 2x higher than Denver's natural radiation. Japan is lifting even more evacuation orders as we speak [3]. If they gave people the proper information about the health risks (e.g. that you need more than 100 mSv in a year before the smallest measurable cancer increase can be seen) then people would have all moved back 10 years ago. [1] https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution [2] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 [3] https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/19741 https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/19741

mcronce 4y ago
> the costs of the backup generators and batteries Just to put an extra-fine point on this...the backup generators are typically fossil fuel fired, so the unpaid externalities apply to those as well.
photochemsyn 4y ago
I think we want to compare nuclear and solar/wind/storage, where the base goal is to have a steady power generation rate over time (adjustable to demand within certain limits). This tends to produce a closer cost outcome for nuclear and s/w/s as storage costs (batteries, inertial storage, pumped hydro, etc.) are probably going to at least double or triple the installed costs of the s/w/s power system. For example, if you want to provide relatively steady 1GW of power 24-7, 12 m/yr, this can be done with a nuclear plant running at its optimal rate (*optimal for fuel rod lifetime and steady burn rate). With a solar/wind system, you'd likely need enough PV panels to produce say 2GW at noon, with 1GW going to grid demand and another GW going to storage, to meet demand at midnight etc. Balancing seasonal demand in subpolar regions would require a lot more power and storage as well, so nuclear may have an advantage there. Clearly both systems are possible, but both have supply chain issues (uranium ore and fuel elements and reactor construction, vs. battery components and PV panels and wind turbines and storage infrastructure). However, I'd guess long-term maintenance costs are going to be much lower with solar/wind/storage systems (with much lower fueling/waste storage issues and liabilities, which would really just be battery maintenance and replacement costs).
irq-1 4y ago
What am I misunderstanding/miscalculating? The US uses ~4000 billion kilowatt-hours [1] and these $1 Billion reactors produce 8GW. 8GW is 8 million kilowatt-hours. 4,000,000 MKWh / 8 MKWh = 500,000 reactors. To provide 20% of electricity we need 100,000 of these reactors at a cost of $100 Trillion? A quick google says: > One hundred trillion dollars. That’s the total net worth of all Americans in 2017*. [1] In 2021, net generation of electricity from utility-scale generators in the United States was about 4,116 billion kilowatthours (kWh) (or about 4.12 trillion kWh). https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...